Psychotherapy Articles

The lives behind the people who create, write, produce, direct and act on TV shows and movies can be complicated and stressful. Reputations hang in the balance with every new project, and the pressure to succeed and project a “perfect” life is intense and never-ending.

What are the kinds of unique challenges such creative people in Hollywood face? How do they differ from “normal” people’s lives? Is there anything their stories can teach us??

Whatever happens in our lives impacts our mind either consciously or unconsciously. Sometimes events — such as the unexpected death of a loved one, illness, fearful thoughts, near-death accidents or experiences — result in traumas. Psychological trauma causes damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a severely distressing event.

How Somatic Psychotherapy Helps

Somatic psychotherapy is one of the best ways to help patients suffering from psychological traumas cope, recover and live a normal life.

As the online world has grown, so have the potential pitfalls a psychotherapist can make while navigating this increasingly interconnected landscape. But with pitfalls also come wonderful new opportunities to grow and market your private practice online.

There are so many business and marketing aspects to your clinical private practice, but few of them are discussed in much depth in most graduate school programs. This leaves new practitioners searching for the basics of business and marketing on their own.

But search no more. We’re happy to be bringing two of the pros in this area to the Psych Central family with a new blog called Private Practice Kickstart. If you’re a clinician or professional psychotherapist, you’re going to want to put this blog on your “must read” list.

Often it’s not glaringly obvious that we need to seek professional help. So we wait until we’re experiencing crippling anxiety, a deep depression, full-blown insomnia or seething self-loathing to finally contact a therapist.

In fact, many people do. According to some research, people wait years or even decades before seeking help.

However, going to therapy early — before problems become deeply entrenched — means we can feel better faster, and start the process of healing sooner.

Some people are especially attuned to their bodily sensations. When they experience certain symptoms — headache, stomachache, dizziness or any kind of discomfort — they assume the worst. They start worrying that something is very wrong with them.

What if it’s heart disease or cancer? What if it’s a tumor or meningitis? What if it’s an illness I don’t know about or doctors haven’t even discovered?

They may pore over medical websites trying to diagnose their symptoms, trying to figure out if they’re safe or sick. They may become consumed by their worry, ruminating about a specific illness or a range of dangerous or deadly diseases.

If you’re like most people with depression, you probably should be engaging in two simultaneous treatments — some type of psychotherapy combined with an antidepressant medication. That is, if you have moderate to severe depression and you’ve had it for less than 2 years.

So says yet another study confirming what we’ve now known for decades… The study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, found that you can expect full recovery from such a depressive episode when you employ the full double-barrel of depression treatment.

Yet most people don’t — they opt for one or the other, but not both at the same time. In making this choice, most people are short-changing themselves… And their chances at recovery from depression in a shorter period of time.

You have just been diagnosed with a mental health condition such as depression, bipolar disorder, panic disorder, addiction, OCD, or some other mental health disorder. You go see a counselor to get help. Eventually your relatives and closest friends find out your condition. The problem is that some of them get on your case and do not understand what you are going through.

Many people have a difficult time finding an effective mental health counselor. The key is to find one that will help you solve your current mental health problems. If you do not know what you are looking for or where to start, then here are a few ideas:

Knowing when a child needs to see a therapist can be tricky. Naturally, young kids don’t have the emotional or communication skills to verbalize what they need and how they’re feeling.

Therapy can be incredibly helpful for kids. It teaches children healthy coping skills. It teaches them how to understand, articulate and express their feelings instead of acting out behaviorally, said Clair Mellenthin, LCSW, a child and family therapist.

“What is her problem all the damn time? Why can’t she just chill out? We don’t have problems, she has problems. I have to get back to work.”

The man who comes into counseling with this sort of mindset we will call Mr. Perfect. This high-achieving specimen of masculinity is usually in some field requiring an excess of education or on-the-job training. He is successful in his career and receives a lot of positive feedback.

Not just competent at work, he can also take the kids for an afternoon on his own because he is calm, cool and collected in all situations, even those involving toddlers and poop. His friends consider him a good guy. He is attractive and well-spoken. In an emergency, he is the person you want around. What a guy, right? (Don’t swoon just yet.)